


Kind or Otherwise

by bravelikealady



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, ask meme, letter writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 13:46:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6987505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravelikealady/pseuds/bravelikealady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa sits in Winterfell, a wife, a Queen, when the Elder Brother rides to her gate, bearing correspondence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kind or Otherwise

The first letter comes with the snow. Her men do not grant the Elder Brother passage at first, thinking him some remnant of Stannis’s camp or Bolton to do ill; They have been tricked so much this past year. He waits by the gate for an hour and so Sansa rides down to him. She believed him. She did not need a reason. If she had learned anything, it was to trust the turn of her gut. In her father’s solar- her solar- she is half way through the letter before she really understands who it is from, how it is here, that he is alive.

 

_...he will attest those actions were none of mine, I was on the Quiet Isle by then, and near dead. Think no worse than you have right to, though you have plenty, Little Bird. _

_ I have turned it over and over… what was done to you, what I let them do to you, and I know that I do not deserve forgiveness. But you are all I think of as this Brother heals me, or so he says. I have never done any healing so I can’t tell if it’s working.  _

_ He tells me you are married now, to some bastard boy, and it makes me angry. We work on that. I suppose it cannot be worse than any Lannister. He tells me also you are at Winterfell. I think of what it would be like to serve you, how ever I can. The Brother doesn’t want me to kill again, but I would for you.  _

_ The Brother won’t tell me if he really means to give this letter to you, but in case he does… I don’t deserve your forgiveness, or to hear from you, but I might near beg for that last one. I would serve you, Winterfell. It’s what I know how to do. I tried to take your sister home. I would’ve tried to take you home, though I turned out to not be much good. _

_ I think of you. _

 

_ S _

 

“Leave us,” she says to those of her household, her hands shaking slightly as they grip the parchment.

 

_ I think of you _ . It is such a simple statement and no proper way to end a letter. But it sits on her chest, it snakes around her heart. It is warm and ripe and unforgiving.  _ I think of you, _ in boyish scrawl, and she wonders if the Lannister let him learn a thing once he was theirs, wonders how his household learned at all. Had the Cleganes a Maester? A Septa? How could it have mattered living with the Mountain?

 

She turns to the Elder Brother, “Thank you… for delivering this. And… he is well? He is still well?”

 

“He is, better than we could have hoped. It is why I agreed to consider this and ultimately to deliver it.”

 

“And will you take correspondance back to him?”

 

“Good queen, I will.”

 

“It is treason to lie to a queen,” she says, hoping her slight smile is enough to guard the very real temptation of bearing her teeth to be sure the Hound gets his reply.

 

The Elder Brother laughs, “I do not lie, Sansa. You have my word.”

 

And so their correspondence continued. 

 

_ Sandor, _

 

_ The bastard is legitimized. All is proper. He is no Lannister and I am glad of it. He has been true to the cause of my family and the North, though I do not say the same for his family, who sought only to rise. _

 

_ I would have you serve House Stark gladly, though I must speak on it with my husband. I too want to know that it is best for you, and what you truly want. I will not have you here as penance. You must mean it, from a happy heart. _

 

_ I forgive you. I have had to forgive much worse. You were trapped the same as I. I have learned there are so many ways to be trapped.  _

 

_ I think of you too. Often. I do not know how much is known of what happened to me, where I have been… but I spent time locked away in the Eyrie. And I thought of you. Dreamt of you. It was a comfort. Just as in King’s Landing you were a comfort. And I am sorry I did not realize it until you were gone. _

 

_ I wish the way you kissed me had been more a thing of kindness than fear. _

 

_ Write me soon. _

 

_ LB _

 

She let no one see the letter, and placed her seal in wax thrice upon it, so that it would be very evident to the Hound should anyone tear it open. 

 

Weeks passed and she continued to rebuild Winterfell, Winter Town, and survey the surrounding areas and tally the findings: dead, alive, food, viable seeds, horses. Each time Maester Tarly brought her a letter her heart climbed to her throat, then sank to find only sugared words of begged forgiveness, general reports from the Manderlys, updates on territory and the execution or conversion of remaining Bolton and Baratheon men from her Lord Husband.

 

_ I can make any man a lord _ . She did not know why she had the thought. She brushed it away.

 

She was standing in the makeshift orphanage and school, out of what once held dog and direwolf alike, smiling as a group of the youngest struggled to write their names when finally a letter she wanted passed into her hands. Sansa gave a bow and walked with great purpose to her chamber and tore it open. It was so short, she frowned. But her eyes widened as she read.

 

_ Sansa, _

 

_ I am afraid I have never kissed you, kind or otherwise.  _

 

_ I will be with you in a fortnight. _

 

_ There are a lot of things I plan to fix. _

 

_ S _

  
  
  



End file.
